Eighteen-year-old Ian Miller is hoping to bring a youthful perspective and an environmental conscience to Red Deer City council.
Miller, who decided to run after consulting with his peers following graduation, is hoping Red Deer can maintain its presence as an industry leader—while also becoming an example of environmental stewardship.
“I definitely support our tradespeople because they do a great job in Red Deer,” he said. “They are the ones who have built Red Deer and we don’t want to lower the presence of oilfield workers, welders and carpenters, because we need them to continue to thrive.
“However, we do need to expand renewable energy and clean energy in Red Deer. Supporting clean energy will help communities around us the same. Together, we can work for a cleaner, better future.”
Miller also believes the City of Red Deer needs to listen to the voices of the young people who will be passed the torch in the coming years.
“I found our youth isn’t given the voice they deserve,” he said. “They need a louder voice. There is not a lot of young people running for City council and that could become a problem at some point. It will just be older generations, which is not a bad thing—it is just not good for our youth.”
Miller believes by empowering younger people, a more well-rounded Red Deer perspective can be represented by Red Deer City council.
“I would benefit council with a perspective that is coming from a youth standpoint,” Miller said. “It is good to always have a rounded perspective because if City council wants to work together in a great way—having youth on council would be a great way to start.”
On top of environmental stewardship, Miller believes that his perspective can help young people who may be falling through the cracks in our system.
“One of the biggest issues is crime.” he said. “Obviously we have a crime rate. You can look at it a lot of different ways. Crime can vary from a traffic violation to robbing a grocery store—so there is a lot of different ways to look at it. Crime can be pinpointed and we can figure out what is really important in Red Deer and what we need to crack down on.
“That also brings us back to our youth. We need to focus on our youth and help them out earlier because at some point they will fall through the cracks and we won’t be able to help them.”
Miller is against raising taxes, which he believes could be used in more efficient ways.
“With our taxes, we don’t need to necessarily raise them because that doesn’t always mean money is going to the right thing,” he said. “We need to pinpoint where majority opinion veers towards and use them there. Hopefully we can work together to use tax dollars efficiently rather then simply raising them.
“Lowering them would be great because we spend a lot of money on things we don’t necessarily need to spend money on.”
Miller believes municipal politics is idea for his personal beliefs.
“I want to work with the people of Red Deer,” he said. “Personally, I am more to middle. I have a lot of viewpoints on the left and I have a lot of viewpoints on the right. That is what I like about the non-partisan part of running for civic council.
“You don’t need to choose a party that labels you. You can have a lot of individual views.”
todd.vaughan@reddeerexpress.com
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